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Round Five – three drivers and three cars left! Two warm-up laps and two hot laps are all that are left before one of these drivers is awarded the Shoot Out Championship! In the background you can see the main building at Turn 10 on the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park Grand Prix track.At the end of the regular season, Mohamed Hussain was second after Michael Gardner, Kyle Beaty was third, and Carsten Gieschen was fifth. After four rounds of the Shoot Out, Kyle in his Touring 2 class Celica had finished in top spot in each of them. Carsten and his Grand Touring 1 class BMW M3 was second in three and third in one. Mohamed Hussain, running his CRX Si in Grand Touring 4, was second in one and third in one. Greg Campbell grabbed one of the third place spots in the early rounds. In Round Four Mohamed was behind Kyle by 0.001 points and Carsten was just over 0.6 points back. Carsten's actual time was 90.760 seconds, Mohamed 93.751, and Kyle 96.273 – which points out the accuracy of the OTA classification and PAX system. And absolutely led to some heightened suspense among the spectators who knew that a good run for any of these drivers would be all that it would take to capture the Shoot Out victory.
I stationed myself at the end of the front straight to capture the cars as they entered the chicane. The M3 handled the corner very well. Carsten has made huge gains with this car since he began bringing it out to Ontario Time Attack events five or six years ago.
Mohamed has been wheeling this CRX Si for as long as I've known him. And he keeps getting faster and faster as he analyzes his driving, works on the car, and simply enjoys himself out on the track. I have benefitted from his tips, suggestions, and support – so have any other competitors who has been around Mohamed. He really does want you to be the best that you can be.
I have never had the opportunity to compete with Kyle, but I love his car and how he is making the Celica a force to be reckoned with. Driving a slow car fast – he can provide lessons. I briefly thought how much fun it would have been to run my NX (when it was 1.6 litre NA powered) and classed Touring 3 against Kyle's Celica – until I saw that he was 3 and 5 seconds faster at TMP and SMP – and then I decided that it's best they never meet. (I think it's because tires are better now than they were five years ago!)
Could Victory be identified by picture size? By the number of pics of each car used in the article so far? The next page holds the answer.First, some video of the track and some in car action. The first part of the video is a drive about in my 2004 RX-8 to give you an idea of the track layout. Next, there's a split screen view of the cockpit as both Mohamed and Kyle are taking their cars around the track. The final segment is viewing the track through Mohamed's windshield and seeing the track go by considerably faster than my sedate tour. And the only reason I don't have footage from Carsten's car is that there was not enough time (and I only have one WASPcam).
